We may not all be lucky, but we are all strong
Frequently I have been catching myself thinking about how I have to get pregnant this coming cycle. Because so-and-so is pregnant… or because this is our last embryo in storage… or because my 27th birthday is this year… or because the due date would be the last one before Devin’s second birthday. So many reasons I could list out, and in my heart it feels so real. This need. Like I may just have a breakdown if I don’t.
But then I remind myself, no. If I don’t get pregnant, I will be sad and angry, then I’ll pick myself up and keep going. Because that’s what I do. It’s the only thing TO do. Being pregnant sooner rather than later would be a wonderful thing, but it’s not going to make or break my life. I need to stop putting these ultimatums on myself. This is obviously going to take its own time and unfortunately there is only so much I can do to help it along. Stressing does not help.
In one way infertility is worse than grief: instead of getting progressively better, it gets progressively worse. Every failed month you lose another chunk of your sanity and trust that it will somehow work out, and then you ask yourself, how far down the hole will I fall? Because that’s the scary part. Not that it failed this time, but that it might fail next time, too, and the time after that. When will it end? Will it end?
At least the loss is a loss no matter which way you spin it. Granted it’s the worst kind of pain I could possibly imagine, but you know it is the bottom of the well and it can only possibly get better from here or I will die. And it does. Every month it gets a little easier to bear. After a while you start realizing that you’re feeling better every month and you actually start believing that it will continue to feel a little better.
But that irreversable permanence is the dagger in the heart, isn’t it. Going through infertility treatments you’re hoping that this will be the last month of this crap, the last time sitting, praying on the bathroom floor over a little magic stick. There is hope that it will end. With grief the only hope is that one day it won’t hurt as much.
I know which one I’d choose, if I had to. But they both suck royally.
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I hear from people all the time, “I could never handle what you have.” The thing is, no one thinks they could survive a tragedy. No one really thinks to themselves, “If my baby died, I could deal with it.” It’s just that when it happens you have two choices: live or die. Living requires getting back up and moving. Maybe slowly, maybe in the wrong direction, but all of us end up getting back up at some point.
I will mention that there are some people who believe that it happened to us because we are strong. I don’t. I venture to guess most people don’t. It’s just plain bad luck – which means it could have been you, or her, or me. And, with very few exceptions, we all survive it. Just like people survive losing a spouse, survive fighting cancer, survive house fires and tornados.
We are in an entitled age, where we think nothing bad will happen to us. People get a positive pregnancy test and start planning the nursery. Not saying that it’s wrong – I sure did it, and I don’t regret it. But we just expect things to go well. That wasn’t always the case. Babies used to die a lot more often. So did children and adults. It was a shitty, but normal, part of life. We don’t often see people handle this kind of grief very often anymore – and when it does happen it’s not public. There exists a hush over the topic. A fear of this horrible thing that happens only to the terribly unlucky.
I am very glad it happens less often. I am so very glad for the advances in medicine. I am much less impressed with the resulting confusion in society. No one knows what to do – our rituals are oftentimes outdated and confusing. And nobody thinks that they are strong enough to get through it.
Humans are tough. We can survive a whole lot of shit thrown at us. Thankfully many of us will never have to deal with a terrible tragedy like this, but that doesn’t mean you are any less capable… just lucky.
You are so right on so many fronts here. I have had all the same thoughts (from the second half of that post that is). I don’t feel strong. I just feel unlucky. I also think others could survive this just as “well” as I am. Like you say, we don’t really get a choice. Sink or swim. And yes, less babies dying is a wonderful thing. It just means when it does happen, it knocks you for six more than it once would have. Obs and midwives do well at perpetuating the myth that all will be well as well. It is wrong. The information needs to be more balanced and realistic. But of course we don’t want to scare people now.
Great post Natalie, and my thoughts are with you for this next cycle.
your post really hit the nail on the head for me. I’ve never lost a child and pray that i will never experience that pain, but both of my parents died when i was 19 in a freak car accident. it’s not the same, i know. but people told me the same thing as my siblings and i packed their things, sold the house we grew up in to move in with our grandparents, and tried to find homes for our pets– i don’t know how you can go on, how do you do it, i could never handle it, you are so strong. well, how could i not be? how could i not go on? i often tell people if it happened to them, then they would go on too like i did. is it hard? of course, it’s hard as hell… i was in a fog for quite some time and was on autopilot for months. it’s been almost 6 years and my heart still aches daily. but you can either give up or go on, and i chose to go on. i really couldn’t hit more of a rock bottom at that point so the only way to go was up. anyway, hope that wasn’t weird, sometimes it can come out that way because I have a hard time talking about it. your post just really spoke to me. i really hope this cycle is it, you will be in my thoughts and i am sending good vibes your way!!
This hit a nerve with me as well. I always resent the people that say “i could never handle it” when people refer to the struggles we have had (8 miscarriages, one in 2nd tri, and my brother losing his full-term daughter to stillbirth). Although on the one hand, in my private moments, I do have some pride at having battled our trials, I always feel that there is some smugness when people say that “they could never handle it” to me. I know they are not gloating or anything, but I want to say to them that it is a simple twist of fate or game of chance that has me in my shoes and they and theirs, and it could easily have happened another way. I think this is PARTICULARLY true of course with stillbirth or baby death. Infertility is a bit different b/c it technically IS something amiss with your system. But in the grand scheme, it is random that some were alotted that fate as well, while others pop babies out just by thinking about sex.
Anyway, those comments definitely bug. And as always, you eloquently state your position and touch a shared nerve with many of your readers!
(Incidentally, I do think that in some ways IF is worse than a loss, in the ways that your stated: the on-going, progressively worsening nature of the IF curse. I also do think that there is more support and less stigma out there associated with loss than with IF, so it is in some ways easier to grieve about a loss than it is to do the slow, silent grieving about IF. At least it felt to me that there were more shoulders to cry on (not that a 2nd tri loss is even in the same vicinity of stillbirth though, so it’s hard for me to do a true, accurate comparison). Either way, as you stated also, I would def. choose the former over the latter though- any day. Because as you said, there is an end to IF, whereas a loss is permanently devastating.)
A very thoughtful post. You are right about handling tragedy and how one has to live or die. Humans are resourceful beings.
It actually really annoys me when people tell me how “strong” I am and that they “could never handle it.”
I told myself that my entire life. When I was 16 and a 2 year old boy that I had babysat since he was 3 months old died…I was devastated and couldn’t imagine making it through losing MY baby.
And yet here I am. Alive, well, and happy for the most part.
So when someone says that to me, I tell them “Yes, you could. Because you would have no other choice.”
Anyway, (hugs) to you.
I guess you become the version of yourself that *can* handle it, and does.
Wish you didn’t have to.
You have matured so much. I am so proud of you!